What are the most intelligent or realistic sci fi videogames Holla Forums?

It doesn't, but those 2 things definitely aren't very realistic.

why are we here
only to suffer?

Kerbal gets astrodynamics pretty well, so it's quite realistic in that regard.

...

Space Rangers HD: A War Apart has stock exchange, investment to transit, donation to war victims. Information gathering is crucial and you do that by looking at the TV channels on every stations to look for where the point of interests are. There are unique text adventures within some missions that each play like none others. You can get your own mech and upgrade it too. Then there's a strategy game mode. It's a hodgepodge of many games that give me lots of things to do.

Also if you lend out a huge loan for insurance and that company got destroyed by a Dominator fleet, your debt is forfeit and you get to keep all that money.

You're here to invent interspace travel or die trying to help the next generation invent it. You're then here to play vidya so that the next generation has good vidya to chillax with while travelling space.

What the fuck are you doing not helping the next generation and not playing vidya?

Kerbal Space Program.
Deus Ex debatable really
Syndicate.

Deus Ex had some wacky shit in it but the overall plot structure is increasingly believable

KSP is cool but it only simulates physics between spacecraft and bodies, meaning the Mun, Kerbin, etc. are just on fixed paths. In addition, spacecraft are only affected by one body at a time, so you miss out on cool shit like Lagrange points. I think the fixed paths are acceptable, but the single body at a time stuff is kind of lame.

Are you implying human-like aliens aren't realistic? Humans evolved for a reason after all, a lot of reasons in fact. It would be reasonable to assume that any similar intelligence would face many if not all of the same selection pressures, likely leading to many of the same features as humans.

Just like the physical body, values and culture also evolve based on a similar set of selection pressures. Again, it seems far more likely that any advanced intelligent species would develop along a recognizable, though not necessarily identical, path as humans.

The point I'm trying to make is that based on what we know about the universe and evolution, the less human-like the aliens are (at least in a very general sense), the LESS realistic they are.

That's a very human way of thinking, isn't it?

...

What's the context of that image?

Humans, and most terrestrial animal life for that matter, looks the way it does because the early bony fish that would eventually evolve and crawl onto land happened to be tetrapods. What if these fish were instead bipods or hexapods? What if instead it was a species that instead had radial symmetry?
The reason humans are so successful is because we have 2 free limbs to manipulate objects, and any other intelligent species out there would likely have a similar adaptation, but how would they look and function if the ancestor species was as I described above? Assuming that any intelligent alien species would just be humans but blue is really fucking naive.

Humans have serious anatomical problems as well. Knees are terrible and the birth canal is easily the worst of all animals. A more likely scenario is that human-like intelligence is a curse, not a blessing, because if it were that obviously advantageous other things on Earth would've evolved to the same extent.

You got regular old humies, monkey-lizard not-klingons and psychokinetic not-orks

Then you got psychic dolphins who`s ships are basically individual specimen in voidsuits, the near eusocial bugs and nomadic space dragons

All with serious amounts of lore behind them, and even unique warpdrives which all function very differently from each other.

it's not that the birth canal is bad, it's that the skull has been growing larger to accommodate greater brain size. The problem here is ever since humans started getting more intelligent, the evolutionary pressure to correct this hasn't been present, especially with modern medicine.

Not "humans but blue", but to say that they would have at least 4 limbs + 1 head, at least 2 of those limbs would be for grasping, likely with something very similar to hands. In a very general sense they would look in a way that functions similar to humans.

Being bipods is unlikely, due to the need for both locomotion and manipulation. Something like a prehensile tongue and/or mouth grasping is extremely impractical and does not likely lead to further advancement. Hexapods could be possible, although the extra body complication could retard mental development somewhat.

It's only by the thinnest razors-edge that intelligence in humans can be considered evolutionarily advantageous. Yes, it has allowed for dominance over the planet, but has also invented thousands of reasons for humans to desire deeply to murder one another. Extinction of the species will either occur directly at the hands of the species, or due to the obstinance and laziness of the species.

In any case, thinking that all intelligent aliens would look like humans is just a criminal lack of creativity and a narrow mind, with a good fat dose of the anthropic principal. It's very likely that, should aliens have evolved a a system of cellular information-transference NOT based upon DNA, that they would be so radically different from humans as to be downright Lovecraftian, as in simply incomprehensible in form or even beyond our understanding of the physical universe.

There is NOTHING wrong with humanlike xenoz

It's perfectly possible for them to only have 2 limbs if they don't also function as legs, and even then it would be possible to get away with only 1. And even if those limbs are legs, it's still possible to grasp things with them. Who says the grasping part has to be at the end of the limb?
Why couldn't the brain be located in the core of the body instead? It would make a lot more sense for the most important part of the body to be in a secure location rather than sticking out with a thin, easily severed part holding it on.
Not even close.
You completely ignore the possibility of a race of gastropods, or one that floats via a lighter than air gas bladder.
If anything having extra limbs that can manipulate objects would promote faster development because it allows for more complex tools to be used.
You're really bad at this.

Not really. We stood up on two legs mostly on random. Even from there it was a lot of randomness that led us to control of fire and eventual evolution of brain because we could fed it more easily.
Google a bit about it. I would say watch Discovery channel but it was pseudo scientific when I used to watch it and now it is just Storage Wars.

There might as well not even be trees on other planets. There might be just a lot of moss that tries to cover as much space as it can and slugs eating on it. Saying aliens will have to deal with same stuff we needed to is quite absurd.

EVERYTHING is related. No trees, no larger land lifeforms, no chance of intelligent terrestrial life. Humans developed in the perfect mix of a trillion different "random" factors. Change any one of them and you probably wouldn't have ended up with any intelligent species at all on earth, so it stands to reason that you are going to need nearly all of the same factors elsewhere as well.

You have a disappointingly narrow view of how evolution works. Life does not need to be large to be intelligent and the only factor needed to develop intelligence is competition.

I seriously don't even see how I can explain it. You view is so narrow and wrong, I just cannot.
I would need to go through entire biology book.

Zuul a best

I know fuck all about evolution and even I know you are so wrong

You do get that human-like aliens are the more realistic option though right?

As long as other planets follow the same principles of evolution.

That was made up as a justification for TV shows where the aliens are played by humans in makeup. It's fine for that purpose, but it isn't actually true.

That's some huge assumption you've got there. The truth is we have no idea how likely that is because our sample size of viable planets is 1.

Covergent evolution.

I'm completely aware of that, but knowing that the laws of physics and chemistry are most probably the same everywhere, it is more likely to think that evolution would follow the same rules, or at least very similar ones.

Nice two-word response, you fucking illiterate.

Those two word are enough though. It is more probable for the aliens to be human-like because of covergent evolution.

no it's not. convergent evolution doesn't fucking apply when you're talking about different planets with different selection pressures, millions of kilometers apart, with different gravity, air composition etc etc etc

Let's take a look at some of the most intelligent non-human animals on the planet.

Apes and chimps are technically quadruped, not biped; their superior limbs can just double as graspers.
Dolphins don't have any limbs and are aquatic, not terrestrial.
Corvids have four limbs but use their inferior limbs as graspers, and they can fly.
Raccoons are the same as apes with regard to limb use.
Elephants are four-limbed, but they use THEIR GODDAMNED NOSE as a grasper.

And this is just the variations on ONE planet, that has in fact lost NINETY-NINE PERCENT of its genetic diversity through mass extinctions. The fact of the matter is: nature is a lot more creative at solving problems using multiple different methods, than you (or, to be blunt: humans) are.

You forgot the part where said synthetic life was due to an amateur programming error. Some of those aliens though, they're based off race and national stereotypes once you realize that those cycloptic cowards stop looking like aleins and start looking like goofy frenchmen.

It might be a little TOO deep.

PURGE

Yup, compare that shit to ass erect or star wars.

Wanting to work together and help others is also a human way of thinking. Guess what? Every single way of thinking you can come up with is a human way of thinking because that's all we fucking know.

Have you even considered that not every potential life-form has to be carbon based?

Well, that's not really right. Evolution has a degree of randomness, so by default that's wrong, there's absolutely nothing perfect about it.

First of all, I wasn't aware that niggers walked around on their hands as well as their feet. Second of all, none of the species you mentioned are nearly intelligent as humans. Not even in the same city, let alone ballpark m8

The argument is that they possess some amount of intelligence and sentience, and that therefore not all intelligent life has to develop the same way as humans in order to achieve that intelligence.

Too bad the actual games are dogshit

Most animals possess some amount of intelligence and sentience, though. If we look at individual specimens rather than the entire species, you can even find some animals, such as Koko the Gorilla, that are smarter than the average human moron.

Additionally, we can actually find other species that are as intelligent as humans; Denisovans, Neanderthals, and other distant relatives who went extinct. I'm not a biologist, but I don't think you would need to be to see the clear pattern that higher intelligence on earth is pretty exclusive to human-like species. Maybe if the environment was entirely different, the intelligent species may look different, but anything of that sorts is purely conjecture.

>still no SotS dating sim

First ones decent enough
and then it died horribly

Until we discover alien life anything on this subject is pure conjecture. The pattern of intelligent life on Earth has zero bearing on potential intelligent life elsewhere. But believing that any intelligent life must take a humanoid form is a remarkably narrow view.

Halo's EU.

The game makes it out to be space opera sci fi movie tripe but the actual lore is almost hard sci fi and cosmic horror when you get into forerunner era stuff The novels themselves are thankfully pretty damn good too

Also see

Nah. The laws of physics are the same everywhere. unless you count handwaving it with a buzzword (Such as saying 'narrow view' repeatedly), there's no refutation for why it wouldn't be similar elsewhere. Of course, there would be deviations and differences, but not to such a degree that it'd be unrecognizable.

The laws of physics can be the same and produce wildly different results. An Earth-like planet is not the only one capable of creating and sustaining life. An alien could theoretically not even be carbon based. And assuming that alien life was created, carbon or no, it wouldn't be subjected to the same environment and selection pressures that lead to the evolution of the humanoid form. Dolphins are one of the most intelligent life forms on the planet after humans, and they're not even terrestrial, let alone humanoid, but somehow it's entirely unbelievable that intelligent life could develop in a different form.
First time I've said it, and you calling it a buzzword doesn't mean it's not true. Saying "the laws of physics are the same everywhere" is just as handwave-y.
I never said it would be unrecognisable either.

Das it mane

Ancestor traits. Four limbs, a tail, and a head are pretty much inherent in almost all mammals whether as a working form or vestigial because those are the traits are oldest common ancestor had and those traits are the most ingrained. Although we humans do not have a tail poking out anymore we still have the tail bone and bits of the tail as vestigial remains. Any alien that doesn't evolve from an animal of some sort with 4 limbs, a tail, and a head then the chances of them sharing the same shape as a human is exponentially lower.
The human form is incredibly rare on this planet, even our hand's shape is very specific in allowing us to pick up or hold tools in a way that is impossible for a myriad of our cousin apes to do. Our standing upright with a straight back and walking on two legs like this is even rarer. btw Octopi, Dolphins, and Whales

There is though.
Even on Earth, there's a ton of different environments for life to take shape in, with the biggest divide being between aquatic and terrestrial life.
Besides, the basic requirements for a species to be on par with humans are human-level intelligence and the ability to manipulate objects in the environment, the latter being an ability that's not even exclusive to mammals, let alone humans.

Eh, that's not really true. As much as dreamers and idealists like to talk, the biologists and the like tend to disagree; There is a limit on what is habitable. Are you also one of those kind of folks who think that alien life wouldn't breathe oxygen and post edgy images like pic related?
They aren't as intelligent as humans, not even close. You'd be looking at more humanoid animals, such as Chimpanzees or Gorillas or their relatives when it comes to intelligence.
No it isn't. The laws of physics are firmly established laws of how shit works, to make it simple. Saying 'Muh narrow view' isn't a firmly established anything, it's literally just ignoring all of the laws of evolution and biology that you dislike.

Nothing of the sort. I think you should look at the similarities that all of the intelligent species; our close relatives, such as Neanderthals and Denisovans and the like, have. Alot, in short. Would you say it's pure coincidence that species with our form had higher intelligence?
They're still nowhere near as intelligent as humans, and, if you're going to start arguing by degrees, then any animal qualifies for being somewhat intelligent and/or sentient. Many different animals, from Chimps, to Elephants, to Birds, to yes, even dolphins, show self awareness. If you're going to claim that because most animals are capable of recognizing themselves in a mirror, or something of that sort, that they could have evolved to become intelligent life, then you clearly don't understand how biology works, and you would do good to read up on it and understand why they have no evolutionary pressure to do so.

This backs up my argument, though. There are no dolphins or alike species with intelligence comparable to, say, neanderthals. Actually, there are simply no other species with comparable intelligence at all aside from their relatives, such as us. Doesn't this suggest a pattern to you?

Dolphins also didn't experience any major selective pressure toward intelligence.
Humans and the rest of the hominid family didn't just become smart because it would be fun, they developed intelligence in response to selective pressure that killed anyone who wasn't smart enough to figure out things like fire, or how to use the cold to preserve meat for later eating.

This is what always annoyed me about ME before it turned into cucked, hurried out the door bullshit.

Literally every alien on your crew and who you're meant to take seriously is a humanoid alien. If it's not two legged and two armed it's just a pangalactic joke.

Show me some sources where biologists agree that alien life would be humanoid or that only Earth-like planets could potentially hold life. Even planets with minor differences in gravity and atmosphere could produce totally different entities. It doesn't have to be a lava planet or some bullshit.
As far as our current understanding of the universe goes, but there's still debate about the underlying systems of the universe, i.e string theory. We still have zero idea how a lot of things work. We have theories and hypotheses, but saying "the laws of physics are always the same everywhere in a potentially infinite universe" is definitely handwaving.
Listen to the arguments being given to you. Patterns of selective pressure on Earth have absolutely no bearing on potential alien life. Just because the humanoid form is common for higher intelligence on Earth does not mean that it has to be common for alien life. You're still working under the assumption that any alien must go through the same process we did to become intelligent. A sample size of 1 is not enough to make that assumption.

I will never not be disappointed in that franchise. I went into Combat Evolved expecting equal parts Robocop, Sam Fisher and GOTTA GO FAST and I got some fucking pussy that can't move faster than a jog and is less durable than a marine in a flak jacket in a game with more-or-less zero stealth.

Sure.

Becoming a civlization and rising above requires MORE than inteligence.

Give a snake the highest intellect, and it still won't be able to build something as simple as a bow and arrow.

Any species that wants to develop civlization and technology requires several in addition to intelligence things:
1) flexible, but strong manipulators to build things with
2) good mobility
3) good carry capacity
4) Good information gathering organs (eyes, ears)

Except I wasn't talking about technology or civilization, just intelligence. You're also assuming that the organism has to be completely self sufficient and autonomous and not considering the possibility of a species that evolved to work in tandem, hiveminds like insects or colonial organisms like siphonophores.

oh yeah? howcome all the aliens that earth has been in contact with in real life look like humans?

Lmao

They were genetically altered slaves.
we don't know how the Original Kohr Ah looks like in the game.

ahhh this sucks, what books are good.
which ones should I avoid?

probably not much different, but brown

I wouldn't say so, when both of the Ur-Quan species won the Slave war they turned their captors (the Dnyarri) into flesh bags
Maybe the Ur-Quan looked vastly different than before.

I don't hate humanlike xenos but whenever I see them I get the impression that the designers were just being lazy. There are an innumerable amount of planets and the only ones that could develop any form of intelligent life look just like us? Not only are the odds of that incredibly low but I feel as though it gives humans a little too much credit.

System Shock isn't intelligent or realistic enough to warrant a post in this thread normally, but I want to mention that it's a very intelligent horror within the games.

Without going into too many details, most enemies are scarier after you've read the details on how they came into existence, or what they actually are.

i know their psyche was modified, but i dont recall it being implied they were more than brain frogs. its interesting to think about though.

The Dnyarri were always brain frogs tho, they didnt change anything but genetically lobotomizing them.

user, if an asteroid hadn't hit then dinosaurs would be alive and some velociraptor would have evolved intelligence.

There's raptors alive today, they're called chickens. If you want a bird that's smart start looking at Corvids. Give crows another few million years and you're going to get sentient birds

You know that's not how evolution works, right? Please be joking.

what did he imply, user?

I don't like having the crossing of ducts for breathing and eating called the throat. That's an oversight left from the ancient past in the sea. They should be separate from each other to avoid gagging. Also ear bones that once were the part of jaws were later fixed in a rather clumsy manner. And the appendix with a lumen (an empty space within) is a liability.

Not happening unless you remove the currently dominant species (us) and its all descendants.

It's a concept in paleontology, based off empirical observation and evolutionary biology. All mammals can be seen to have these traits even if they're vestigial and serve absolutely no purpose. Note that whales and dolphins are also mammals and have remnants of hands or feet in the skeletal structure of their fins where the arms or legs would be, and Whale whiskers is hair. Since we are mammals we too have a tail bone, the remnants of once having a tail, and of course hair. Since it's much, much less likely for entirely new pairs of limbs to come from natural selection and easier to lose pairs of arms or legs and the tail our shape is purely due to this. It's easier to be walking straight, with a tall back, on two legs and then losing the tail then growing another set of legs.

Any alien that were to form as a "human" form, in a land based environment would have to have come from an ancestor that only had two arms and two legs.

I didn't claim that, I just name dropped them the better term would be "implying" since Dolphins can read and we've been teaching them too. I specifically was talking about something in paleontology and evolutionary biology and the rarity of the human form.

I downloaded this before it was re-released digitally

I fucking loved it so much I bought it when it came out, strategy portion still basic bitch shit but it made me realize that all strategy games are basic bitch shit these days

Why couldn't the brain be located in the core of the body instead?
Because the top of the head, back of the neck, and top/back of the shoulders is a massive contiguous radiator. It would make sense for the head to be in the center of the body only for a creature that lived in a much more effective medium for transferring heat than air- water, for example.

That sounds like what you can become in EYE.

Problem is that n-body simulations are not feasible on consumer grade PCs.

Sentient just means aware of its surroundings. Anything above the level of a worm is sentient.

To me, all Ur-Quan look the same, with the exception of a palette swap. The original Ur-Quan probably just had the same palette as the Kzer-Za, or looked the same as both forks with a different palette.

Yeah? Human sperm can't be made because of excessive heat, so the testicles hang outside the body. Based on that, every alien species would have the same, but there are plenty of species that have internal testicles. You just CAN'T base everything off of humans, or life on Earth, or life based on DNA, or life based on carbon, or really anything.

das raysiss

Whatever you say, Satan!

Post proof.
If anything the most likely alien would be a nanobot swarm brain.

Almost all life we find will probably be carbon or silicon based because those are the only element that can bind with themselves to make complex molecules. Since there are thousands of times more carbon than silicon it will probably be carbon.

There are literally thousands of examples of animals evolving to fill a similar niche but do it differently.

Picks related are two animals that shared a similar niche in their environment. They look nothing alike despite sharing 90% of their DNA.
The "They need to look like humans to be smart" thing is stupid.

But there were huge land life forms for millions of years back when ferns were the main thing.

i've only read ghosts of onyx, but damn, that was some tight shit

On one hand it means we are alone, on the other it means we have no competition and are the most powerful things around.

There is literally no reason why you can't have an intelligent creature that looks like a Racoon or an Elephant instead of a human. They both have graspers and the ability to have big brains.

Or that most life happens to be made of mirror matter and we just ended up on the wrong side of the looking glass.

Not according to the people who’ve studied this shit for decades.
Oh, so you don’t comprehend the discussion. Got it.

There’s a minimum physical size requirement for sapience, and the animal will need at least one form of jointed grasper to ever use tools, but other than that just stick it on land and there’s nothing that says it can’t do its thing.
Oxygen’s extremely useful to chemical processes, but how is it a requirement?
I will never openly behave like a jew.
Reminder that niggers can’t do this.
ONE DATA POINT IS NOT A PATTERN, IDIOT. There’s nothing stopping these shapes from obtaining sapience (except that two.jpg would need to swap its ungulate feet for jointed digits).

Raccoons possibly yes. As a matter of fact Raccoons are quite intelligent as is. They also happen to be shaped fairly similarly to humans, at least by comparison to the sort of alien this thread wants to see. As they evolve to rely more on their hands for fine manipulation/tool use (which ultimately is where intelligence comes from) you would find them evolving to walk less on them too, further pushing them towards a human shape. As their brains grow, their head would probably be further optimized to allow such large brains at birth, so even that would start to take on a more human shape.

Elephants probably not. Their single grasping trunk is ill-equipped for tool creation. There are probably a thousand other reasons too, but that stands out the most to me

No, it looks like you are the one who doesn't understand. Evolution/Natural Selection is absolutely going to work the same on any other planet. It's the natural outcome of basic physical laws, applicable everywhere. The exact form of (the equivalent of) DNA and many of the environmental conditions determining the outcome of that selection process may be different, but the process itself is always the same.

Explain
Explain
All you have to do is give them a better grasper at the end of their nose

That… has identical conditions to Earth. If the planet doesn’t, IT WON’T. Fuck’s sake.
Oh, so it won’t be the same. Got it. Thanks for admitting it.

Ah, this MAY be more predictable than other factors. Humans have huge heads because the EASIEST thing to do was just jam more neurons into the box rather than to increase complexity in the thinking organ. As such, humans are born about three months earlier (developmentally) than many other mammals, because if we were any later we’d kill our mothers coming out (or just not be able to GET out).

They would need two of them. A single appendage is limited in what it can do because it is very difficult to leverage on itself. Consider any task where you take an object in one hand and then manipulate it in the other, this is nearly impossible.

Grow a second trunk and give it a modification for better fine manipulation… and basically you've just created an analog for 2 arms with hands.

The process is the same. That's the important part. If we know the process is the same (competition for survival, better suited traits are passed on) then we can start to make guesses based on what traits work together and what conditions work with what traits.

BOLTZMANN BRAINS

discuss

being sexy is a good base trait to build off of

You fell for the anti 343 circlejerk. 343 sucks at the game stories but their novel track record is as good as bungie's, essentially.

Their first few novels were questionable, as the forerunner triology is polarizing (I think they are the best written novels in the franchise though) and the kilo 5 triloguy is almost universally considered the worst novels (though I think the first two aren't terrible), but pretty much every novel released in and since 2015 has been great.

Well, re-read the ones you mentioned you already read, as well as first strike, which bridges the gap between The Flood and Ghosts of Onyx.

After that, read Evolutions, The forerunner novels, the first kilo 5 book (Glasslands, you can read the next two if you really wanna follow the characters it introduces, if not, skip them), Last Light, Broken Circle, Fractures (which includes shadow of intent and saints testimoney), and Smokey and Shadow.

There's also new blood and hunters in the dark, but the reception on them is mixed. Envoy also just came out but it's too new to judge.

See what I wrote above, just make sure you read the ones that user said he read, in the order of release.

Or, perhaps they're technologically equal or inferior to us. Maybe the insect hive race of a quarter trillion is still stuck in the medieval period, or the Star Spawn are banging rocks together and beating drums to summon their Father From Above The Blackness?

The theory is that given the numbers there should be somebody somewhere much more advanced than us. It doesn't matter how many less advanced species there are, the question is why isn't there anybody sufficiently advanced to be noticeable?

There are a LOT of possible answers to that question though

They did.

They made the mistake of trying to compete with us for the same evolutionary niche and over the same resources.

That's why there aren't any left.

this

Sword of the Stars has only two vaguely humanoid alien species: Tarka and Zuul (and for Zuul, only the males are close enough to count). The rest are pretty distinctly their own thing: Hivers, Liir, Morrigi. And if you count the second game, the Loa aren't even aliens, they're rogue AIs that humans "created".

It's an interesting universe, and the first game was great. Second game is a little rough but still has some magic. Apparently there are novels too? I wouldn't know.

They challenged humanity and died. Sounds bad to me.

I really want the new StarControl game by Stardock to be good. Also I want it to have multiplayer matchmaking.

We have no choice, there is nothing else to base alien life we make up on as a reference.
Yes we can, carbon is a basic element in the periodic table. DNA is essentially code, pretty much anything that would rely on generational code that dictates all the physical properties of the living organism for how they work on the microscopic level or smaller can be compared to DNA if it's not exactly DNA. However that said, most people don't even care about that level of detail and think genes instead of the math of DNA so even if you went that far conservation of detail dictates that wouldn't even matter.

I admit I don't like the Dominator section in this but you need to do them to liberate stars which you buy maps but couldnt travel to. Later on they will take over the entire galaxy saves for Earth's star system in which you are reduced to mining asteroids for a living

Because being sexually attractive to a species halfway across the galaxy is a perfectly valid strategy for survival on a planet where the species you are sexually attractive to does not exist.
At least the asari from ME were hinted at doing some mental manipulation to get into everyone's pants, which would also explain how they survived long enough to advance to the space age.

Try harder.
And silicon can do what carbon does almost exactly as well. Even fluorides can be turned into proteins.

speculativeevolution.wikia.com/wiki/Alternative_biochemistry

Probably the most likely solution to the Prime Mover quandary with regards to the origin of the Big Bang, at least in my view.

Oh yes, let me just head on over to the ayy embasy and look at irl aliens to see what they look like. Fuck off m8, you either use imagination to make shit up or you look at the only life we know to exist beyond microbes and extrapolate.
And it's purely a choice to do so, outside square cube law and some important to know trivia for macro scale organism Silicon and Fluoride pretty much just inform the alien's appearance on a superficial level.

Or, again, YOU TRY FUCKING HARDER, because I literally just proved your false dichotomy wrong.
Yeah, random chance. Totally. No one has been studying the mechanics of this shit on the molecular level or anything–weighing various options against one another. No, no, silicon is chosen completely at random. Mhmm.

By telling me to try harder, which essentially means jackshit to any context i could think of beyond "use your imagination, but more" which is exactly what i just said there
What the fuck are you on about? Let me make things clear, I am purely talking about designing aliens for entertainment and fiction. Not speculative fiction where the only thing you do is autistically hammer out every detail. Again choosing Silicon and Fluoride is a choice, and does not matter for the purposes of story telling outside a very niche thing that only those who are into that soret of thing would care about.

*I fucked that greentext up

Same, I remember thinking Ghosts of Onyx as one of my favorite sci-fi novels.

True. That said, carbon is still the most likely option if only because it's so common.

It won't happen because that's not how evolution works in the first place, assuming the other user meant higher intelligence and not just sentience which birds already have. But you don't need to remove humans for other animals to develop higher intelligence. If anything we're making individuals from certain ape species more intelligent by teaching them sign language and other shit. Having humans around would probably speed up the development of higher intelligence if we were to put a concerted effort into it.

Those are the only two that can do it effectively, with carbon being the most effective. I'm pretty sure sulfur is a proposed alternative along with another chemical element I can't remember, but they're much shittier than carbon or silicon.

That does not mean the outcome will be. An algorithm is the exact same no matter how you use it, but different inputs result in different outputs. How is this hard to understand?

False, they challenged the entire galaxy, and would've won if Zelnick didn't have the hypno-toad in his cargo bay

if you can take an evolutionary trait and make it sexy youre winning at life. dont just play to survive, play to win

surviving is winning

wrong, surviving gives you a chance at winning

People like you are the cancer that's killing sci-fy.

A chance at winning what? The alternative to survival is death, anything else is just icing on the cake.

not all that survives does much more than survive, it would be a miserable existence. that were even able to have this conversation over this distance is winning.

In we're just talking in evolutionary terms (which is what I assumed you were going from in your first reply, but maybe I got that wrong) this conversation is just icing on the cake. But yes, in terms of quality of life and the food chain we are succeeding far better than any other animal.

Well, it's more than they just fucked up with using Unity to program the game because they were just making a cutesy little software toy to mess around with. It unpredictably exploded in popularity so they added to it and added to it, and by the time they realized the serious limits of the engine, it was too late to rebuild the game from the ground up, so they just had to bootstrap it over and over again. The physics simulation has always just had to be an approximation because the engine can't handle calculations with the complexity for n-body problems, even if a computer can.

There is no place for two intelligent species on the same planet. They would compete for the same resources. Consider that now there aren't any other hominid lineages from the past.

Depends if they operate in the same environment and on resource effectiveness. It's possible two intelligent species could use mostly different resources and thus co-exist (precluding any kind of fighting based just on territory or aggression)

The chances of 2 intelligent creatures evolving at the same time on the same planet are probably so rare that it has never happened before but it should be technically possible if they evolved for a long time on other sides of the planet or somehow don't compete.

The same approach is called "brute forcing" in IT, fam. Dictionary attack at best, in this case.

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they do most of the time, either self defense or hunger

Convergent evolution is basically a story specific explanation to justify why an alein would exist that looks human, since if aliens exist and they developed into a human form then technically that would be considered convergent evolution because they're aliens from an entirely different planet yet developed the same characteristics. It doesn't work like that in reverse, however and is a poor argument in favor of human aliens.

Maybe if they made a Kerbal Space Program 2?

There can be a workaround, the planets are on fixed paths, so the lagrange points are fixed too, they have to calculate where they should be and make a spot where gravity gets completely disabled, it doesn't need to calculate everything, they should learn to use some smoke and mirrors.

this.
more devs need to learn that if you want your game to include X, you dont actually have to put X in the game, you just have to build the game so it seems like X is in the game. and most people will be more impressed enough by the "magic" the wont even care about the "trick"

In our local sector of the galaxy, maybe. The idea that we would be able to detect alien radio waves is pretty bullshit. If your radio waves are decodable from another star, then you're losing money.

The most likely interpretation of what we can see is that a) most species can't into spacefaring, because they die out before they reach that stage (like we will), or their culture or genetics don't push them toward such an endeavor, and b) that the spacefaring races that do exist either never leave their star system or run a small empire of a few systems because anything else is impractical.

The upshot of all that is that the galaxy could be teeming with intelligent life but unless there's a pre-modern civilization on Alpha Centauri or Wolf 359, we'll never see any of it. The black pill is the only true pill when it comes to space.

I highly doubt this. Think about it. There are 7 billion people on the planet. Not even an all out nuclear war be likely be able to kill us all because even if 99.99% of humanity dies there would happen to be enough people who survive to repopulate the earth all over again.
I doubt this. it's natural for all living things to reproduce and expand. There would be no reason to want to stay on a single planet when jumping to other ones gives you so many rewards.

I am certain the most likely reason is that intelligent species are just extremely rare. Probably one for every thousand galaxies since the amount of freak things that need to happen for intelligent life to exist is huge.

Consider the following:
All this together means that there could be a shitton of intelligent life out there, but we can't find it because our only means of long-distance communication still takes millennia to go one way, is not a lossless format, and we've only been able to use that medium for 2 centuries or so.

it would be like going to some random polynesian island where the natives have never had contact with the outside world and giving them iphones and guns.

The issue isn't the number of people, the issue is there not being enough of a stable ecosystem remaining to provide basic needs for these people. And who's to say these people will ever find each other? Sure they could have all survived together in the same shelter but that makes the strain on resources that much higher.
All living things on earth sure, but it's entirely possible life on other planets might favor a hard cap on population and go for quality over quantity.

You're forgetting about territory, and some animals also kill kids that aren't theirs to promote their own genes, while getting rid of others

There is also energy problems with full 360 degree coverage when sending a powerful transmission that could travel across the universe, you'd have to be at Dyson sphere levels with that sort of energy requirements. A pinpoint transmission is simple enough to do, but you'd need a justified reason for sending that signal out.

Natural selection will make every organism to want to reproduce as and expand as much as they can. This is true for every species that will likely ever live. Every country has wanted to get as much land as it can, there is no reason to believe aliens wouldn't want to, especially when doing so doesn't hurt anyone. No species that is smart will actively not want to harvest energy from the stars around it or colonize around them.
There should literally be enough food around that have been left over by humans to feed the people and scavenge while nuclear winter is going on. Like, any city should have enough food around to last a few hundred people for some time. 99.99% still leaves 700,000 people on earth. It's unlikely they would all die. Life would be shit but there would just by luck people some people who by chance managed to get their family into a shelter at the right time, that would give them enough time to last until they can scavenge for food.

My point is, we've had the technology for detecting electromagnetic energy for a very short time on the galactic scale, so even detecting a hint of ayys is a long shot, let alone actually communicating with them.

Dude, hamster mothers will often eat entire litters of their own babies for a variety of reasons. Chimps will chimp out on a random member of their group for no apparent reason, and cats kill smaller animals for shits and giggles (I had a cat whose favorite pass time was to kill a bird or lizard and play with the corpse by throwing it into the air over and over for hours).

People like you are why the aliens avoid us.
And how much of that food is non perishable? Because there sure as fuck won't be any electricity so anything that requires refrigeration will go back within weeks which heavily limits what would be available. You also fail to realize that nuclear fallout and radiation lasts for a really fucking long time and any sustainable ecosystems won't start to rebuild for hundreds, if not thousands of years, and this is assuming damage to the land isn't permanent. Scavenging for food doesn't help when there is no food to scavenge for.

There is no such thing as a "Intelligent game" As intelligence is precede though pears as such a game can not have pears as video games can not see other as such given the lack of consciousness. The developers could be seen as intelligent but not so much as a game. As pears are the one's who could really defined one as such as they can compare to each other a see who knows more.

???

Nice Pair.

Natural selection dictates that all creatures want to reproduce and spread. If they didn't then they would have died out long ago.
How the hell could you have a species survive that doesn't want to reproduce?

Simple, immortal's could do such a act.

If we're talking about a species capable of interstellar travel, they could very easily have overcome their base instincts and undergone some sort of eugenics program.

Natural selection doesn't just mean base instincts user. Think about it this way. You have a species and not every person in a species will do the same things.
We have lets say Joe who doesn't want to reproduce and doesn't want anyone else to reproduce.
Than we have steve who does want to reproduce.
Within only a small amount of time there will be no Joes and a lot of steves. All it takes is one individual who DOES want to reproduce. That is how natural selection works. The people who don't want to expand or reproduce die and the ones who do take over the galaxy. You are somehow implying every single member of a species will go against their biology forever when all it takes is one person to want to reproduce and they win. Even if somehow every single member of a species forever never ever wanted to reproduce (which would never happen) expansion would still happen for things such as energy and resource intake. What country would say no to free energy and material just right there for the taking?

There's a few other possible outcomes to explain the Fermi paradox
Optimist scenario
Ambivalist scenario
Pessimist scenario(s)
>Aliens are hiding from something
Last one is the scariest

Oh, I forgot to include

Other

All of that and you still skipped over the most plausible explanation of "the universe is so big and our advanced communications technology so new we just can't make contact"

I know how natural selection works. I also know that modern humans are subject to almost no natural selection.
What I'm suggesting is an alien species that reaches this same point, realizes it and induces a form of artificial selection, going so far as to inhibit all reproductive urges and limiting total population to reduce the total amount of resources needed to sustain the population. Such a species would not need to colonize other planets or harvest energy from sources outside their planet as they are perfectly stable and controlled.

This also assumes those aliens would exist in the same 3d space as us. They could be directly "above" or "below" us right now and we'd be completely blind to them.

Again, it would take one person to disagree and decide to reproduce and that is all over. There is also no longer reason to not want more energy. Even if you have a low population more energy can be used for many things.

That's exactly what he's saying yet you both keep going on and on

Deus ex obviously until HR messed with it.

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That's basically the optimist scenario. But the chances of us developing even within a million years of another alien civilization are so low that if they existed we'd probably have evidence of them existing (from von neumann probes or something else)

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They have literally no use in KSP though. There would be no point including them.

The electromagnetic waves thing doesn't work, though. We only used energy-inefficient analog signals for a few decades before switching over to digital broadcasts. Earth is simply NOT pumping radio waves out into space at an intensity enough to be noticed. Assuming other civilizations follow the same evolution of technology, the window to detect their radio noise is so small it might as well not exist.

Also the whole inverse-square thing with the EM spectrum means it's indistinguishable from background radiation by time time you even get to Alpha Centauri. Like the other user said, you basically need to point something the size of the Arecibo Array at a certain star system, crank that fucker up to 11, and blast a targeted signal, or nobody will notice.

Keep in mind that insane impractical ayys aren't exactly realistic either.
I don't like humanshit, but I hate how folk's counter is to go full retard insane nonsensical monster.

Again, the point is that finding ayys with electromagnetic-spectrum energy such as radio waves is impossible with the amount of time we've been able to use it.

Hardly. When a culture is so drastically different that basic concepts and standards aren't compatible, you'll essentially be speaking another language even when you've got everything perfectly translated. We have that happen here, on Earth, with issues. What do you think it'll be like in space?

Nigger, pls.

Anything that could come close was either killed off, started too late, limited by biological items such as number of limbs, or just never given the chance to develop beyond that into what a human would consider a proper 'tribe' or 'civilization'.
Look at the crow. Massively intelligent birds. Capable of crafting tools in the wild, have tribes with culture of sorts within their own groups, and even have a rudimentary language. Started too late, and lacked the arms to really reach the level of mankind, but besides that, we'd probably never notice, as we'd never call it near our level.

With only one you lose a hell of a lot of fine manipulation, what'd make it pretty damn hard to make much technology. Unless everyone worked together for everything.
Play SS13 some time, and see how much of a pain in the ass it is when you have only got one hand slot. I realize this is just a game, but it really does put this stuff into perspective.

Grasping close to the body loses a hell of a lot of the potential maneuverability, manipulation, and of course applyable force. Not saying it's impossible, but again, really unlikely given the massive loss of potential at very little, if any, gain. Only thing I could see in this realm is tentacles. They're a bit inefficient at some fine manipulation, but they can function, and that does grasp lower down the limb. Only thing is, they tend to be less functional in terms of strength, stability, and steadiness.

Floaters, while possible I guess no idea what local fauna on their planet would be, is going to result in some weak-ass creatures what can't do hardly any lifting. They'd be severely limited in how they can advance, as they've got no real potential for tools to, say, cut down trees. Local fauna may alter this to being a non-issue, though, but even then you'll have trouble pulling rock from the ground.

But knowing what requirements for life on our planet are, and combining that with knowing what it takes to get technology, we can make at least a few assumptions. For example, at least one, if not two, manipulators, capable of fine work. Else you'll never get more than shitty hammers.

Yeah, but do you really think Dolphins, a creature with no fucking manipulators, are ever going to develop the tech to get off this rock?
Fuck no.

WE WUZ ARCHITECTS N' SHEEEIT

There is no such thing as "starting too late". You're making the widespread error of believing that evolution is directed, or goal-oriented, or tends to advance over time to increasing complexity, diversity, and "intelligence". It does none of these things. Bacteria are as simple and as dumb as "life" can be, and they've been existing quite nicely on this planet for billions of years uninterrupted, and will continue to do so long after humans are dead or gone.

Why does any of this matter? Everything that humans have been unable to do, they have built a machine to do it for them. A human can't build a microprocessor no matter how good their fine motor skills; they need a robot to do it for them. Even in antiquity, humans had developed simple force-multiplication technology (inclined plane, lever, pulley) to do things they were too weak to do with muscle power alone.

Considering the layout, is that really that far from human format?
Two arms, two legs, and a head what contains the brain. If the arms evolve into something what can actually manipulate objects, I'd have no issue saying the things could eventually go full human level civs.
Especially when things like crows are so crazy smart.
Plus, I want dem egg-laying hips

You misunderstand. When I say "started too late", I mean in the sense that, say, the next stage what takes ages to get to hasn't gone through yet for creatures like, say, the crow.
Do you deny evolution takes time?

Because we didn't start capable of building machines, you dumbfuck faggot.
If you've got a way to design robots before you can build pulleys, tools, and wheels, by all means, let me know. That sounds like an amazing advancement.
Point is, if you don't got the physical strength to pick up more than a few pounds, as a floater is undoubtedly going to have issue with, you ain't going to be able to make a hammer.
Fine work is even more stupid of you to bring up. How do you propose a creature with two large claws for hands to make something capable of finer work? Finer work is required for advance technology. Not even drastic advancement, either. Things as simple as fitting tools, weaving, sewing, carving, sculpting, cooking even.

Eh, there's not really that much reason for them not to be able to evolve in conjunction with us. The thing what needs to happen, though, is for food and other such resources to become more difficult to get for them. As it is, they're downright ingenious about how to get food, but they need to go to the next level. They need to be able to, for instance, grow their own food, stockpile it for season shifts, develop tools to transport and refine foods. Learn to build covering shelters, both for themselves, and their food. As it is, they have no need to do any of this. Partly because of us, but mostly because of their size. Unlike humans, they don't need much food, and they've also got the advantage of being capable of flight, meaning they can scavenge a larger area.

They'd be upright to make use of their primary manipulators while moving. Can't use a rifle with your hands on the ground, mate.

Evolution takes time, but only a couple billion years to develop, say, multicellular terrestrial lifeforms. There is no reason an animal with human-level intelligence couldn't have arisen around the time of the earliest dinosaurs. It just didn't because there was no specific benefit to it. I maintain my belief that human intelligence is a fluke of evolution that was very unlikely to provide sufficient adaptation to the environment before the species went extinct from being so weak and helpless in nearly every other way, but just happened to. The Universe is likely filled with life, but I doubt ANY of it is going to be intelligent.

As for the rest, it's absurdly anthropocentric thinking. If a human can't build a computer they'll never go to space because their hands aren't good enough. Oh wait, they just build a machine to do it for them. Why would anything else be different? I've seen people do shit like archery and eating with a fork and knife, USING THEIR GODDAMN FEET. Even primitive "technology" like throwing spears and fire was just specifically to make up for human shortcomings (not having sharp claws/teeth and being slower than their prey, and not being able to sufficiently digest raw protein). Elephant trunks or crow feet are more than dexterous enough to build simple tools that allow the development of more complex tools that allow the development for whatever machinery they need to make up for their own shortcomings.

The requirement is a need for it. When mankind had a need for it, we developed higher levels of thinking. We started learning to craft, say, a blanket from the wooly mammoth because it was cold out.
But, anyway, I'm not saying developed from scratch. I'm talking about thinks like crows, say, what have developed advance intelligence, but not to the level of a human yet. Either because lack of need or time.

How do you propose they build a machine that is capable to make a computer, without having the capability to make the computer in the first place? What's your solution? All I see is you doing here is putting the cart before the horse.

So because you've seen people do simple tasks with tooling built by people who do not have a shortfall of manipulator functionality, creating said tools without the manipulators is possible?
How does that work? You've got a guy shooting a bow with his feet, fine, but can he make a bow with his feet? Can he even string the bow with his feet?
Yes, but those shortcomings were not being incapable of making tools. Don't understand what you don't get about this. It's a very, very simple concept. if you cannot make the item, you cannot make an item to make up for the fact that you cannot make the item. Really, now, it should be some basic common sense, here. Don't even have to have much of any education to figure this shit out.

Crows are capable of making fine tooling, yes. Downside is, they're not really capable of doing any heavy lifting, thanks to being fliers, and their manipulators besides are also their balances, meaning any making of things takes a fair bit more time. Still, I could see crows developing technology, because at least they've got the fine manipulation down.
Elephants, on the other hand, have a single tentacle what doesn't even have fucking digits. I don't even think they could make a fucking hammer, let alone anything more complex.
Give me an example of a tool that lets you use a lumpy appendage like a trunk to make complex fine tooling, that can also be made by a trump, you insufferable faggot.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

Why, Mass Effect: Andromeda™ of course. With its high quality animations and deep, astonishingly written characters, it's bound to entertain you for weeks on end!

Can't carry items/prey worth for shit. Slow. No ground friction to exert pressure.

That's some serious heresy there, m8.
SOTS is easily among the best 4x ever made

They would be removed en masse if they would become too numerous for our convenience. We are already poisoning jackdaws.

Or
I bet this is literally a major reason why many species don't develop sophisticated tools

Go back to where you came from.

Completely wrong. A modern baby has no more intelligence than a baby born 50,000 years ago. All we have now is a rigorous system of education and technology that does most of our shit for us. People are probably much stupider than cavemen, they merely stand on the shoulders of several millennia of civilization.

I never said that a creature wouldn't need ANY manipulators, so don't put words in my mouth. The original argument was that they would need manipulators like human hands. Since you admitted that crows might be able to work, you already agreed with me. Thus ends that argument.

Humans need fire to extract sufficient nutrition from meat. Other animals have no such need. Fire is not a prerequisite to civilization if you're not a human.

Yeah but you need it for metal.

And progressive rock.

Crysis had pretty neat aliens, most of them were this metal and flesh monstrosities and the nanosuit made some sense as it used ayylmao tech.

I chuckled.

How can you say that intelligence was very unlikely to provide sufficient adaptation to the environment? It is possibly the only trait that is 100% certain to improve an organism's evolutionary fitness. What prevents other organisms from getting smart is that intelligence is a compromise that mandates a certain body structure which precludes a number of other capabilities those organisms need more.

Saying that humans are weak and helpless in every way other than intellect reeks of anthropocentrism, too. We're macrofauna. Humans are larger and stronger than the overwhelming majority of species that have ever lived. The list of animals that are a threat to a person even not considering our tool use is tiny. But the reason we aren't even more imposing than we already are is precisely because of the aforementioned compromise so considering human ability without the intelligence component makes no sense.

Blame the Unreal engine for limiting their playable characters to only humanoids. Though in a world where Fallout 3 had a moving train actually be a hat for an running NPC (in admittedly a different engine), I do start to wonder if BioWare could have found a workaround.

And when the North America and South America continents finally drifted into one another, those two animals ended up migrating onto the others land mass and had to compete against each other.

Interestingly enough it worked out, sabre tooth cats may have had difficulty removing meat from the bones (of their prey) without fear of breaking their massive teeth, while the terror bird could live off the meat the cats couldn't eat. As seen in this Walking with Beasts clips at 2:30

It's no wonder chimps are primarily fruit eaters, and get their protein from eating insects. Primates are just NOT designed to be hunters, not designed to be predators, not designed to be apex-anything. They evolved to sit in fucking trees, hiding from the real predators, and eat fleas off each other, having lots and lots of sex to make enough offspring to stave off extinction of their puny species.

As for human-level intelligence, it simply doesn't provide for an immediate benefit. Evolution is a very slow process if you look at it one way (millions of years), but it's a very fast process if looked at another way: the length of one organism's lifetime. If a trait does not provide an immediate benefit, and in fact is a detriment to that individual, it will be removed from the so-called gene-pool right away when it dies before reproducing. Human civilization becoming organized enough to provide a protective and collective benefit greater than what any primate social "tribe" already could, didn't occur for 50,000 years after anatomically-modern humans had already existed.

In fact, without the infrastructure to support the modern lifestyle in which human intelligence is fully utilized, having this level of intelligence provides no additional benefit. A being capable of building spacecraft has no use for that ability in a hunter/gatherer tribe. It would be like having a computer on a deserted island, with no electricity to run it and no internet to hook up to. It's an amazing machine, but it's useless for survival in that context.

Bioware could've gone all the way for them but they didn't want to cause it was too much work for just a couple NPCs.

Now for evolution and natural selection, one place to look are islands. They always end up having the most unique or bizarre organisms because the lack of ecological niches of one type or another means things that would not be possible on the mainland could happen.

We didn't evolve from chimps, they're a separate branch from a common ancestor, and Gorillas only have leopards as their real primary predator and they're both notably stronger and physically capable then humans.

I didn't say that humans evolved from chimps; I was only using them as an example from the primate family. Mentioning a species that is much stronger than humans doesn't help the case for humans.

Yeah, communists cultists freak me out as well

Except that it does, we're weaker, and slower then pretty much everything we need to be smart and have something going for us or we wouldn't even be here. Even for the 10s of thousands of years before the industrialization age kicked off the greatest predators and obstacles we faced we drove out to become significantly less harmful or we drove to extinction and our greatest threat was sickness and disease by that period. The true kickstart of our intelligence getting to the point of opening the way for industrialization in masse was the black plague.

*and famine

The human tailbone isn't entirely vestigial. It still serves as an attachment site for tendons, ligaments, and muscles. It also functions as an insertion point of some of the muscles of the pelvic floor.

Not arguing against biological evolution or anything retarded like that, but our tailbones are not, technically, vestigial in the way most people mean.

I am not a furry but "human like" aliens are bullshit and anyone who uses them have a sci fi universe not worth reading or playing.

But clothes are more convenient and versatile than fur/feathers. Losing any trait is quite easy if it's not something contributing to one's survival or reproductive success.

Not to mention that a sufficiently advanced alien civilization might subject its members to all kinds of genetic engineering for a variety of reasons.

We use clothes because we don't have fur. So they wouldn't start using clothes to cover up theirs unless it was really cold.

If an already intelligent species lost its fur someday, intentionally or inadvertently, it wouldn't be a big issue.

*lost → were to loose
Time for bed, I'm becoming incoherent.

My main problem is when they make them hairless, then proceed to not invent clothing for them and leave them naked or with a loincloth.

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Yeah but evolution probably wouldn't evolve for it. Humans are a rare exceptions and that was why we invented clothes.

That's a retarded requirement. Sci-fi stories are just regular stories told in exotic locales. If you try to make it about non-human flying jellyfish aliens, people quickly lose interest in the story by virtue of how unrelatable the characters are. Anytime you have a non-human alien species, they're always cast as either some eldritch horror (reapers) or some apex predator trying to kill you (Aliens/Predator/etc). Those are about the only non-human things that people can relate to.

The most interesting part of stories is the stuff that appeals to humans, ie romance, war, racism, etc. This is why you see this shit repeated over and over again in every story, regardless of the genre. When you add completely exotic aliens that care about none of those things, then you basically have a boring story where humans cannot interact with those aliens in any meaningful way.

Not always. Try reading the Ender's Game subplot related to insectlike eusocial aliens in that novel. Or its continuation Speaker for the Dead with its Piggies. The aliens being incomprehensible were crucial for the plot.

there is no such thing as jellyfish aliens, those are what we call "Monsters" but because its sci-fi we call them aliens. the ultimate form in the universe is the humanoid.

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Aren't warm blooded. Intelligent creatures are very likely to be warm blooded and are warm blooded in pretty much all fiction.
Most animals with fur still clean themselves
Something only humans feel and there is no reason to believe a dog should feel shame for being nude when they have fur.

You mean normalfags. The greatest sci-fi are created by people who understand the science behind the fiction. Boring normalfags can't stand anything that isn't in their generic and relatable life so they need blue women.

No it isn't. That is retarded. If that were true why is there only one humanoid animal that we know of in the universe and is humans?

Or if you are up for some heavy-duty thinking try reading Stanisław Lem, but rather his Fiasco than Solaris.

Because we are the ultimate life form on earth
we are the most advanced and live in a higher plane of existence other than plants.

Back to plebbit with you, horseshoe faggot.
>>>/out/

Alien Shooter

Please explain

plants have been here for the past 3 billion years, humans have only been here for 2 million.
You do the math.

Plants can telepathically feel your intent, they can feel pain, sorrow, happiness and even play in the sun.
They nurture their young by giving them nutrients through their roots, they communicate through their roots.
They go to war through their roots.

When the sun consumes the Earth there will be no plants. Only man and the galaxy.

man will take plants along with them

I will not reduce plants to common house pets locked in a cupboard.

I will make a waifu from a grape vine and call her Summer Wine.

You're merely pretending right?

Intelligence is a very energy intensive thing to have, the only reason we have it is because we genuinely need it. Walking on two legs like us requires a minimum of intelligence just to navigate anything more complicated then a perfectly flat surface (see robotics as a demonstration of this), our form is a sub-par generalist so we need intelligence to put it to good use for anything, we have a high demand for a number of nutrients and energy so the only food we can reliably eat to sustain ourselves is meat and plants not exclusively one or the other. which means we have to hunt for food and forage for plants which means we need to be smarter then (or just as smart as) what we hunt and capable of distinguishing plants. Those of us whom lived in harsh environmental conditions needed to be smarter to prepare and survive in those harsh conditions, it's telling the races that lived in places that didn't require anything of them for hundreds of thousands of years are the stupidest and most backwards.

They're also cold blooded ruthless motherfuckers that kill the competition by any means necessary.

A cucumber can feel pain 8x more than a human, it screams when you cut it through its pheromones.

this is no joke.

having a single plant in your room will improve the air quality of your room.

Pheromones are not feeling. You gonna tell me bees are incredibly passionate creatures because they use pheromones?

Any my sex life.

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pheromones are a communication method, not feelings.

mabey by breathing better your brain will work better and you will feel better and be more confident.

Exactly, so how do you know it feels pain, let alone anything, if it for pheromones which like I said are not indicative of feeling.

*if not for

when a plant shoots off pheromones any neighboring plant will pick up on this scent and know what is going on and also feel that same thing.

you can tell what a plant is feeling through its electrical signals.
if you put a flame under a leaf the plant will spike its electrical signals, if you imagine the plant on fire it will also feel this intent and its electrical signals will fire but not as strong as if you actually put a fire under it.

plants have fun in the sun, you can absorb them through slow motion camera over a period of a long time, they dance and move around.

observe*

But it isn't "feeling". It is responding to an input like a biological calculator. Plants do not possess an organ with which to feel like a sentient being does.

what is feeling? a response to an input. when you cry something made you cry. plants are sentient, it is ridiculous to assume the only means of sentients is human like.

But feeling implies some sort of idea behind it, the ability to have abstract ideas about the input. If someone calls you a name and you get sad, that's not responding to an input. Humans can conceptualize the meaning of the insult and process it. Olants respond directly, they respond to specific stimuli and don't have to conceptualize or process it further than a human would process a reflex. They do not possess any kind of understanding of themselves or the world, nor do they possess anything that could be called sentience.

but the fact that someone called you names is an input. words are not abstract "feelings" we have the intelligence to associate words with things and we use that brain to interpret an action or behavior. while plants do not have this form of intelligence, they can still feel your Intent, not the words you say.

No, they cannot. If I approach a plant with plant clippers, unless I have pheromones on me or the blade from a previous cutting, the plant will not send distress pheromones or shy away until I have already cut it. You're claiming that comething with the same "intelligence" of a computer program has sentience.

That "dance" is the plant readjusting itself as insurance for maximum coverage of the sun's rays, that doesn't mean it's having fun it's doing what it needs to do to survive.

how do you know the plant did not feel something? did you measure its electrical signals before you cut it or are you just talking out your ass? plants understand the difference between something fake and reality, for example imagining the plant on fire, the plant will feel something but it can tell that it's not real.

This makes no sense, the sun is not shooting "Rays" it is a continuous beam of light scattered on all the surface of the earth.

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The plant cannot imagine anything. If I measured the signals before I cut it, I am sure they would be at a resting state.

You need to re-read what i said. I said Imagining, plants don't imagine, Humans do.

Then what would a human imagining a plant on fire do? The video you posted just confirms what I have said, they they are merely reacting to set stimuli in a set way.

that's exactly what humans are doing as well.

Do you believe telepathy is impossible?

Humans have a wide set of reactions, for example people are scared or attracted to different things. Show every human on earth a picture of a spider and you will not get the same reaction. And do you have any proofs that plants can do anything remotely resembling telepathy? Because there is not a shred of evidence I have ever come across that proves any creature can.

there are many creatures that have telepathic ability, the only species that i can tell that is cut off from telepathy are humans.

bring a bunch of animals together they are fine, bring a human they all run away.

cats can also detect death in people before it happens, they will curl up next to them.

plants react to fear when an insect is walking on it and chewing on it. it sends its pheromones to other plants and they all start to fear. they send out a scent which attracts predators for the insect eating the plant.

play a sound of an insect chewing on the plant and it will have the same effect.

here is also a video explaining plants

That is cool as hell. A ton of the plant facts in this thread are blowing my mind right now.

Not a sign of telepathy dingus

prove it

That's still just reacting a basic stimulus

My cat used to do that, I'm dead now.

I should get a cat to put me out of my misery

I can't tell if you're serious or you genuinely think people mean "rays" when they say shit like "rays of light" or "the sun's rays" in a sentence. As for beam of light scattered all over the earth, it depends on the angle of the sun. The plant is trying to maximize as much absorption of light as it possibly can part of doing this is that it simply moves and reorientates itself to always face the sun.

user, see
He doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about.

there is no reason for it to maximize anything, the sun shines equally on all surface of the earth, there isnt one point where there is less light than another. except for sunrise and sunset.

wtf up with posts

Okay now I defiantly know your bullshitting and pulling shit out of your ass, first off the atmosphere prevents the sun's light from fully penetrating and heating the surface of the earth equally only the point where the sun is directly high above does light penetrate the most to reach earth. Second the Earth is spherical (but not perfectly rounded), the point directly facing the Sun on the planet is getting the most light and the poles are getting the least sunlight, on top of this Earth spins at a fixed tilt which changes which pole is closer and which pole is farther for each half of the year. Since Photosynthesis is absorbing light energy to convert into chemical energy, and the penetration of light from the sun is not equal at all times thanks to the atmosphere, plants must take measure ensure the maximum amount of surface area exposure to absorb as much light as possible.

the sun is 93 million miles away you fucking moron, it shines on the earth equally on all surfaces except for the backside and parts that are dark. when the sun is out there isn't a point where it's dark on some spots and light on others. the plant would have no reason to shift around and waste energy its priority would be to just let the sun hit its leaves.

It most definitely does not shine equally on all parts of the earth, everything the that user said was 100% true. Although you are right that on the scale of movement plants are capable the differences in sunlight is negligible.

your an idiot, we are not talking about shadows, we are talking about light, light is not something that shines more brightly on one spot and if you step to another it shines less. it is a continuous wave of light on all spots.

It's called a sundial, and shadows shift throughout the day proving you wrong right there user.

If the plant didn't move it's leaves then eventually the angle of the sun would misalign and it's leaves would no longer be getting maximum surface area coverage of the sun's light, since the diffirence generally only becomes significant every 3-4 hours a plant doesn't need to move very fast to accomplish this. But you take that recorded plant and it "dances" at high speeds, because that's what it's independent movements look like when sped up.

Wrong, retard. If this was true we wouldn't have fucking seasons.

It does when you're surrounded by an atmosphere that aborbs that light, again only the spot that is directly facing the sun receives the most light for this exact reason and this actually changes throughout the day every hour because lo and behold the earth fucking spins changing the spot facing the sun.

i will bring plants, because i like them. though, thats just me doing human things like preserving something i like on a whim.

Are you genuinely retarded, or am I witnessing some meta baiting, user pretending to be retarded in a thread about intelligent games?

If we're assuming current evolutionary modelling is accurate aliens probably would be pretty similar to humans. The fact that convergent evolution exists at all should have given it away.

Or maybe you have a good reason to think aliens would be, say, asymmetrical?

Not being human is a very different thing that not being symmetrical. I don't think there's any creature on earth without at least on plane of symmetry.

I believe animals do feel shame on a certain level, like a dog not really liking when people stare at him when he's shitting

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